"The proposed rules "are more progressive than we expected," said Michael Drobac, executive director of the Small UAV Coalition, a trade group that represents drone makers, including Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. "But once you spend some time looking at them, some of the things proposed would be devastating to the future of the industry."

According to the FAA fact sheet and the actual rules (pdf), the rules require direct line of sight (read: a human on the ground) and forbid nighttime use:

"Specifically, the FAA is proposing to add a new part 107 to Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) to allow for routine civil operation of small UAS in the NAS and to provide safety rules for those operations. Consistent with the statutory definition, the proposed rule defines small UAS as those UAS weighing less than 55 pounds. To mitigate risk, the proposed rule would limit small UAS to daylight-only operations, confined areas of operation, and visual-line-of-sight operations."

The rules also note that drone users can't fly their drones faster than 100 mph, or higher than 500 feet. Drones also can't be flown over major population masses, which outlaws pretty much all operation in most urban environments. While a lot of hobbyist uses remain unimpaired, once you start to add up the restrictions it becomes clear that the proposed rules pretty much ban any of the drone delivery ambitions held by companies like Amazon or Google. Commenting to The Guardian, Amazon was quick to threaten that they'll just take their Amazon drone delivery ambitions to countries with more progressive drone rules in play:

"The FAA needs to begin and expeditiously complete the formal process to address the needs of our business, and ultimately our customers," Paul Misener, Amazon vice-president of gobal public policy, said in a statement to the Guardian. “We are committed to realising our vision for Prime Air and are prepared to deploy where we have the regulatory support we need."

I personally always thought Amazon's drone delivery ambitions had more than a small component of hot air, designed predominately to help give the PR impression of intense innovation. I'm a tough sell on the practicality of urban drone delivery anyway; in my head I've always imagined a very dystopian Terry Gilliam-esque affair, where bands of hooligans construct increasingly elaborate steampunk slingshots to shoot down drones, street urchins then scurrying in rapt alleyway pursuit of Prime deliveries and pepperoni pizzas. Then again maybe I'm just being too cynical, and this cat and mouse criminality opens up an entire world of drone delivery security countermeasure-driven business models I've not even thought of.

Of course with the FAA banning night and urban use, we're talking about a lot more than just Google and Amazon's ambitions getting curtailed. Surveillance and the government's use of drones is also obviously a concern. Alongside the new rule proposals the White House issued Presidential memorandum requiring government agencies to detail the time and location of drone operations (though what loopholes are carved out for intelligence and law enforcement remains unclear). Drone operators that take taxpayer money will also need to clearly document what's being done with collected data.

It's worth reiterating that these are just draft rules and we've still got a public comment period that could extend the already-delayed drone rule making process another two years. By the time the public and companies get done hammering away at them over the next few years, we may actually wind up with rules far better than most people ever imagined.

from the ridiculous dept

As we've been covering for a while now, the FAA is doing everything it can to delay nearly all commercial use of drones, despite the many possible innovations drones can lead to. Are there some legitimate safety concerns? Absolutely, but the FAA's approach of "ban everything" and then drip out a few exemptions here and there is problematic. Last year, we wrote about a key test case, involving Raphael Pirker, in which a judge declared that the FAA's ban on drones was illegal (mostly for procedural reasons). A few months ago, that got overturned... and now Pirker and the FAA have settled the matter, with Pirker agreeing to pay $1,100 [pdf] while not admitting to any wrong doing:

Respondent agrees to pay $1,100.00 (the "settlement proceeds") by January 22, 2015, to the FAA in full and final settlement of this matter.

[....]

It is understood and agreed that neither the Respondent's execution of this settlement agreement nor payment of the settlement proceeds constitutes Respondent's admission of any of the facts or regulatory violations alleged in the FAA's June 27, 2013 Order of Assessment or the Amended Order of Assessment that will issue pursuant to this settlement agreement.

From a financial perspective, I'm sure it makes sense for Pirker to settle this agreement for $1,100, rather than having to pay a lot more to go to court. But for the rest of us, this kind of sucks. It would have been good to have at least been able to test whether or not the FAA's rules are really legal. Or, at the very least, put more pressure on the FAA to stop dragging its feet and to start issuing actual rules that allow drones to be used for commercial purposes. The longer we wait, the more likely it is we cede innovation on this important area to other countries.

from the about-time dept

It's been pretty clear for quite some time that there's no real safety reason why electronics are barred during takeoff and landing on airplanes. Furthermore, there's no legitimate technological reason for not allowing mobile phones on planes either -- that one's more just about keeping other passengers from going into a rage at having to hear others' half-conversations. However, it seems that more and more people are getting annoyed that they can't use their snazzy new ebooks or tablet computers (not just iPads, mind you) on airplane take-off and landings. Nick Bilton, over at the NY Times, asked the FAA what was up with that, and they admitted that they're taking "a fresh look" at those devices and whether or not they should be allowed to be used at those times. Of course, as he notes, this might just lead to a bunch of bureaucratic red tape -- including every possible device having to go through significant testing:

Abby Lunardini, vice president of corporate communications at Virgin America, explained that the current guidelines require that an airline must test each version of a single device before it can be approved by the F.A.A. For example, if the airline wanted to get approval for the iPad, it would have to test the first iPad, iPad 2 and the new iPad, each on a separate flight, with no passengers on the plane.

It would have to do the same for every version of the Kindle. It would have to do it for every different model of plane in its fleet. And American, JetBlue, United, Air Wisconsin, etc., would have to do the same thing. (No wonder the F.A.A. is keeping smartphones off the table since there are easily several hundred different models on the market.)

Ms. Lunardini added that Virgin America would like to perform these tests, but the current guidelines make it “prohibitively expensive, especially for an airline with a relatively small fleet that is always in the air on commercial flights like ours.”

But, hopefully, a better, more efficient process can be found, and people will actually be able to use these devices on airplanes that aren't just over 10,000 feet...